


we should be sharing dreams (instead we're sharing nightmares)

by pseudoanalytics



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Ghost Drifting, M/M, Nightmares, Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) Compliant, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Spoilers for Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 19:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14196354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudoanalytics/pseuds/pseudoanalytics
Summary: "So, that's it?" sneers Newton. "You're gonna save me with the power of love?"“No, don’t be ridiculous,” Hermann scoffs. “I plan to save you with the power of science. Specifically neurology. Though, I'll admit, this is a new direction for the field, so you'll have to forgive me if I make some of this up as I go along.”





	we should be sharing dreams (instead we're sharing nightmares)

**Author's Note:**

> fulfilling my 2014 dream and finally writing newmann fic

“So tell me, Doctor,” the psychologist says, “Do you think you and Dr. Geiszler are drift-compatible?”

Hermann opens his mouth to answer instinctively. They can’t be. They can’t. It’s a response that comes just shy of automatic, based on years of arguments and of demeaning one another. Based on the last ten years of little to no contact.

Before he can speak, she interrupts him. “Please, take your time answering.”

And so he does. He sits. He thinks quietly to himself, trying to rewalk worn mental paths he’s trekked thousands of times in the last decade.

The one that rings clearest is Alice.

Alice, Alice, Alice.

Always Alice.

That was all Newton had seemed to want to talk about. It was always, “Come over and meet Alice, Hermann!” “Hermann, come get dinner with me and Alice!” “Hermann, you _have_ to meet Alice. _Please_ , Hermann.”

What had seemed like an intentional slight now obviously is not. Hermann is all too aware he's spent years bitterly ignoring constant pleas for help.

Surely they can’t be compatible. If so, wouldn't Hermann have known? Wouldn't he have understood? If they were really truly drift-compatible, wouldn't Newton have sent him _something_ through the ghost drift?

Something _besides_ his penchant for messy workspace surfaces, preferably.

Something to show Hermann that what was coming could only be described as his worst...

his worst...

nightmare.

“I have nightmares!” Hermann blurts, and the psychologist doesn't even blink. She stares at him, waiting for elaboration. The only sign that she's still listening is her hand, rubbing her thumb across her knuckles in a well-worn fidget.

“I have nightmares,” he says again. “Consistent. Frequently the same one. It’s of... of what I saw — what _we_ saw, in the drift with Alice... I, I mean the kaiju brain.” He pauses to catch his breath, suddenly lightheaded as the thoughts that have tormented his sleep contort and take on new meaning.

“It’s a fuzzy sort of dream. One where I'm alone, trapped somewhere in the darkness. I can _hear_ the kaiju around me. They’re circling. Like I’m prey.” Hermann re-situates his cane so he can scoot forward, lean across the table. “I call for help.”

The psychologist reanimates all at once, leaning toward him as well. “Call for help? From whom?”

Hermann sputters. “I call for... anyone! Anything! Whoever can hear me!” But that's not quite right. He knows it. Her face says she does too. “I call for Newton usually,” he finishes dryly.

The psychologist nods and takes her first note in the past hour.

Hermann frowns. “The point of view... It shifts frequently. Sometimes I’m myself, you know. Calling for help. Sometimes I'm the kaiju.” He stops to rub his face. He’s getting a headache. He hates psychologists with a passion. It's nothing personal about her. “Those are the worst nightmares,” he tells her. “I feel myself built. I cross through the breach and I destroy. I topple buildings and crush civilians and I fight and kill jaegers.”

He doesn't want to tell her that. It’s enough to have PPDC put him under veritable lab arrest. Under any other circumstances, he wouldn't share this part. He’d keep it locked up and away, in that special section of his mind he reluctantly knows he’ll only ever truly share with Newton.

But he has to. Anything they can glean from his mind might help Newton, and more importantly, they won’t let him visit until they can be assured Hermann won’t turn as well.

The silence has dragged on, and the psychologist makes a few more notes. “Are you ever Dr. Geiszler?” she asks calmly.

Hermann shuts his eyes against it and sighs. “No.” It’s an honest answer. He's never seen or felt Newton’s presence in his nightmares. If he had, maybe he would have suspected— no. That’s a dangerous path to follow, and Hermann can't go that way. What ifs never help the present, and Newton needs help here and now. “No, I've never been him.”

She nods and stares down at her restless fingers again. They move jerkily. “Anything else to add, Dr. Gottlieb?”

He shakes his head.

“Then thank you. For your honesty and openness. I'll complete my analysis sometime this week.”

“Thank you,” Hermann says, rising from his chair. He extends his hand for a shake, but she just looks him dead in the eye. He finally lets his arm fall awkwardly back down to his side. He tries again. “Thank you, Doctor...” his voice trails off. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I caught your name.”

Her mouth smiles, but somehow it has no real warmth or happiness to it. “Dr. Ventress. Have a good day, Doctor.”

He nods and turns to the door. “For the record, I believe Newton and I may have been drift-compatible. Perhaps not enough to pilot a jaeger, but... enough.” Then he walks out of her office.

Now begins the waiting game.

* * *

He’s shocked to receive an email that very evening. It’s from the psychologist, cc’d to Secretary General Mori, Rangers Pentecost and Lambert, and a whole host of higher-ups who Hermann recognizes from PPDC board meetings.

He's been cleared to visit Newton whenever he wishes.

For some reason, Hermann hadn't actually believed he would be allowed, and now that he is, he's not altogether certain what he’ll do or say.

 _Hello, Newton. Last time we spoke, you revealed your possession and plan to wipe out all life on Earth. Also you attempted to strangle me and I_ still _, probably foolishly, saved you from Dr. Shao. How have you been since then?_

Hermann has no idea if he’ll be talking with Newton or the Precursors anyway.

How much control does Newton really have?

The seemingly innocuous email makes everything feel more complex rather than less.

He pulls off his glasses and rubs at his temples. Hermann wants nothing more than to head straight to the detention center, but he knows he should wait until the morning. They may have cleared him, but maybe it would look better if he showed some restraint. Some self-control.

“Oh, pull yourself together, Gottlieb,” he hisses, gently slapping his cheeks to shake himself. It’s just another one of Newton’s annoying habits that he’s picked up mysteriously from the ghost drift.

Newton.

Dr. Geiszler.

What should he call him tomorrow?

Nowadays it’s a struggle to call him Dr. Geiszler, as if Newton’s predilection for “Newt” is stopping Hermann’s mouth from wrapping around the words. But he’s still himself, so his brain makes do with Newton as the happy medium.

Newton.

Is it wise to speak to the Precursors on a first name basis?

With a growl, Hermann jabs the power button on his computer and reaches for his coat and cane. The email has effectively destroyed any hope of him finishing his work tonight, no matter how badly Ranger Pentecost needs new jaegers built.

Hermann flips off the lights of his lab and hesitates in the doorway. Then he forces himself to walk quickly to his quarters, shutting his door a little harder than necessary.

Bed. He has to go to bed. The sooner he sleeps, the sooner it will be morning and the sooner he can visit Newton.

He gets ready with the snappy precision of the routine-obsessed and climbs into bed, willing his mind to quiet down. If he has to take a single sleeping pill, that’s his business and no one else’s.

* * *

He wakes in darkness and confusion, head spinning and balance wavering.

He also hears them again.

For a moment, he almost feels relief. Relief that at least he’s himself tonight. But he can still hear them, creeping closer and closer. It’s the pincer-like legs of Precursors and the wet heavy breathing of kaiju.

His own breaths are fast with fear. Hyperventilation is imminent if he doesn't calm himself down. The chittering is so close that he doesn't dare move an arm for fear of making contact.

“It's a nightmare, Gottlieb,” he whispers to himself, and his breath rockets back into his own face as if something solid is only an inch away.

He waits in agony for what feels like forever.

 _The average dream only lasts about five minutes_ , his brain supplies. _It only_ feels _longer._

A drop of kaiju blue materializes from somewhere above and drips to the ground in front of him. Hermann can't see anything but its eerie glow. The light winks out then back on, as if something has quickly passed between Hermann and the drop, obscuring his view.

The panic sets back in, and he yelps, calling for help, calling for _Newton._  Begging him to come—

A memory is triggered. It bobs in Hermann’s brain and rises slowly to the surface, like a bubble of oil in water. It’s the psychologist. He’d had to talk to one, that's right... What had she said? No. What had _he_ said? He’d... he’d told her about the dreams. And how sometimes he was himself and sometimes he was a kaiju.

And how he was never Newton.

Hermann does what he’s never done in a nightmare before. He steps forward. He half expects to run into something, or maybe be attacked, but instead, the chittering around him swells to a crecendo, ducking a little further back.

They're dodging him.

Hermann tenses his hand, and while it was once empty, he feels his cane in there now, smooth and heavy. He swings it wide and hears the whistle of air as it passes through unhindered. He hears the loud thud of a kaiju moving out of reach. They're just as scared, he realizes. They’re scared of _him_.

This time when he calls for Newton, he does it without panic. If his theory is correct and the nightmare _is_ a manifestation of Newton’s cries for help via ghost drift, then he has to be here somewhere. Hermann has certainly tried screaming for him enough to know that’s not the answer. But maybe Hermann’s not the one who needs help.

“Newton? Can you hear me? Do you need help?” he shouts, and the darkness echoes his own accented cries back at him. “Anything you need, Newton! I’m here!”

 _Finally_ , hangs in the air, unspoken. Ten years too late, but he’s here now.

The answer comes in the form of a distant blue light. Hermann is drawn to it; he can’t help himself. He walks forward toward it until it unfurls into the bright gleam of Otachi’s tongue. She groans, and the cracks in her skin flare and glow too, until Hermann is facing down the entire visible kaiju.

“Oh, ah. Alice’s mum,” Hermann mumbles faintly, trying to catch his breath. Then he freezes. In Otachi’s glow, the walls trapping Hermann are revealed. They pulse and throb themselves, in a way that doesn't take a scientist to recognize. “Newton...” Hermann’s heart squeezes with more fear than he’s ever felt in this nightmare.

Newton isn’t answering him because he’s _in_ Newton. He’s in his _brain_.

A small, tiny Hermann amongst a dark sea of kaiju and Precursors.

Hermann reaches out to touch the walls and Otachi leaps. He jolts awake, but not before his fingers graze Newton’s mind. He bolts upright still screaming at the pain.

Huffing and panting, Hermann sags back against the pillows. His new haircut has drooped into a facsimile of his old bowlcut, fringe damp with sweat. He grabs his cane and stumbles into the adjoining bathroom.

No nosebleed. Thank god. But his eye is bloodshot again. The residual throbbing he’d felt upon making contact with the brain walls has settled into the socket. It’s pulsing, but already fading. He takes a few painkillers anyway and washes them down with water straight out of the sink.

Hermann stares at himself in the mirror and wonders how the hell Dr. Ventress saw the pale, exhausted man he sees and deemed him sound of mind to visit Newton.

Though perhaps it turns out he’s been visiting Newton nearly every night for ten years.

* * *

Hermann forces himself to walk to the mess hall and eat breakfast first. He takes his time picking through oatmeal and washes it all down with a cup of coffee. The protein bar is bland and flavorless, but he eats it slowly as though he’s savoring it.

He gives himself a mental pat on the back for not rushing. He has plenty of self-control. He doesn’t _need_ to see Newton immediately. He’s in charge.

“Who are you trying to fool?” Hermann growls under his breath self-deprecatingly.

He jams the last half of the bar into his mouth and snatches up his cane. He drops his plates and meal tray onto their stacks and walks, not too fast not too slow, for the detention center.

Really, the detention center doesn't seem very secure. There are no guards, few cameras, and the master passkey is just laying out on the unattended desk at the entrance.

Fortunately, Hermann supposes, they aren't keeping anyone else in here, and no matter how possessed he may be, Newton really isn't that strong of a person to begin with. At least physically.

Hermann uses his own passkey on the door. No sense in trying to hide his visit from the logs, he figures. The door slides open, and Hermann takes a moment to steady himself at the sight of Newton, strapped down in his chair.

“Hey, Herms,” Newton says.

Hermann doesn't reply.

This Newton is still dressed in parts of his fancy suit. His vest has some blood on it, most likely from a nosebleed, the dried evidence of which is still smeared under his nose. He smiles lazily, eyes half lidded and unobscured by glasses. He’s perfectly still.

Hermann’s Newton is _never_ perfectly still.

Hermann’s Newton is a ball of constant, manic energy. A pot of water at boiling point.

His Newton also considers a rumpled, poorly knotted skinny tie to be formal wear and would never parade around without his glasses close at hand.

His Newton would never claim to love him post-drift and apocalypse averting, only to quit the PPDC a month later and occasionally call to talk about someone named Alice.

The signs are so obvious now that Hermann looks back.

“Gonna talk to me, or are you that mad?” asks _this_ Newton. The one that isn’t Hermann's. That isn’t who he’s screamed at hundreds of times a week in their cramped yet empty lab in the Hong Kong shatterdome.

“Wrong pitch,” Hermann says.

It's not the reply Newton was expecting, and he raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Wrong,” Hermann enunciates, stepping closer, “pitch.”

Newton’s eyes narrow, even though his mouth is pulled into a smile that _just_ misses the familiar zone and slides into a near caricature.

“Newton never spoke without hitting several octaves and decibels higher than where you are now,” Hermann elaborates. “Your attempt to emulate him is rather poor.”

“Oh, we’re not emulating him,” Newton says, sounding vaguely pissed off. “We’re— hah... There we go again. _I_ am in control of... myself. There’s no emulating. Newt is _supposed_ to be acting normally. Business as usual.”

Hermann swallows and lets his mouth stretch uneasily. Another clue then. Another attempt by the real Newton to tell everyone that something was amiss. He acted as contrarilly to his typical habits as possible, and it didn’t even raise suspicions.

“I dream about you,” Hermann says.

“I’ll bet you do. What is this?” Newton tilts his head in thought and flattens his mouth strangely.

That’s _his_ mannerism, Hermann realizes. It seems Newton also suffers from random drift bleed as well.

“What is this?” Newton repeats. “Are you walking in here to say, ‘Oh, Dr. Geiszler, don’t you remember ten years ago when we wildly professed our love to one another for two short weeks!’ You gonna try to save me with the power of love, Hermann?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffs. “I plan to save you with the power of science. Specifically neurology. Though, I’ll admit, this is a new direction for the field, so I may have to make some of this up as I go along. You _were_ always the better biologist.”

“You can't save me, Hermann,” Newton says, and there's a hint of genuine sadness that Hermann tries to cling to. “There's nothing left of Newton for you to save.”

Hermann lunges.

He drops his cane and clamps his long, bony fingers around the tattoos on Newton’s forearms. He squeezes and leans in as close as he can without fear of Newton biting at him.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he spits. He looks straight into Newton’s eyes, trying to talk to _them_. “You forget. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you in the drift. I’ve seen you in Newt’s brain. I know you’re afraid of _me_ , because I encourage him to _fight back_.” Hermann smiles at the genuine fright he sees. Then it melts away, replaced with awe.

“You... you called me Newt.” He tries to nervously jiggle his leg despite the chair’s bindings.

“As I have several times since you’ve gotten yourself into this mess,” Hermann sighs.

“Yeah, well...” Newt says weakly. Then that slight vulnerability is glossed over, and Hermann knows he’s lost him again. “Why do you bother to care about me when I hate you so much?”

Hermann stoops to gather his cane. When he stands again, he feels refreshed and slightly hopeful, though he wouldn’t dare show it. “ _You_ may hate me, but _Newt_ does not. I’ll be back again tomorrow. And the day after that and the day after that, until he’s free or one of us dies.”

“Why?” snarls Newt again.

“Shortly before you foolishly attempted to reopen multiple breaches, I was given a mission.”

“You? A mission? They _must_ be desperate. They’ve never given you a mission before.”

“Exactly,” Hermann says. He pats down his coat and straightens his waistband. “My first mission was assigned by Ranger Pentecost. I was told to find and retrieve Dr. Newton Geiszler. I do not believe I have done so yet.” He steps toward the door of the cell. “I _will_ complete my mission.”

Newton’s smile is crooked. The lighting on his face is wrong, and a thin trickle of blood slides from his nose. “Is that a threat or a promise, Herms?”

Hermann flattens his mouth and sets his jaw. “It’s a promise for Newton. And a _threat_ for you.”

Then he walks out and lets the door shut on Newton’s raucous laughter, two octaves too low.

**Author's Note:**

> Mako Mori is alive and takes her girlfriend, Liwen Shao, to daily lunches with Raleigh


End file.
